Supported by Manchester Institute for Mathematical Sciences, by the London
Mathematical Society, by the Institute
of Mathematics and Applications
and by the UK
Mathematics Foundation.

A meeting with
this theme took place on 18-19 March 2005 in Manchester.Participants represented many different
constituencies - including government agencies, the mathematics research
community, university admissions, mathematics education, mathematics
competitions, teachers, and young mathematicians who have themselves been through
the system.

As a result of
the meeting, we produced a Preliminary Report for wide circulation, as part of a process
leading to a more substantial investigation of the issues and possibilities. A
more detailed Discussion Documentis in process of preparation. Your comments
on the Preliminary Report are especially welcome, please send them to
Alexandre Borovik,

and Tony Gardiner,

Media coverage:

From Letters and Opinion, THES, July
8 2005, p.17:

“On the one hand, the UK
mathematics community falls short of reproducing itself. On the other,
mathematicians have the highest earnings expecta­tions ofall graduates
("Home PhDs trumped by overseas maths experts", July 1).

This is hardly the
efficient market that the Higher Edu­cation Funding Council for England
believes it is operat­ing. But the Hefce analysis of the market is flawed. The
key change has been the boom in jobs in information technology and finance. As
a result, few maths graduates or PhDs become teachers or lecturers, with the
result that demand outstrips supply even further.

In an efficient market,
career prospects alone would motivate teenagers to study maths, but this is
surely nei­ther realistic nor desirable. If the nation wishes to supply its
jobs market, schools maths teaching must be improved and better funding and
bursaries provided in universities. Hefce already sets the finan­cial
parameters for the student market: why does it fear inter­vening further?”

The Times Higher
Education Supplement:Leader: Mixed messages on key subjects (01 July 2005)

“One day senior mathematicians say there is a crisis
in the subject that is the bedrock of the sciences, the next day the Higher
Education Funding Council for England tells us not to panic and to leave it to
the market. In both cases, perhaps they would say that, wouldn't they?
Mathematicians are frustrated by the lack of progress since Adrian Smith's
critical report on the subject last year, while the funding council sensibly
does not want to be called in to offer aid every time a department is in
trouble. But if the UK Mathematics Foundation is right about the scale of
decline in secondary and higher education, the Hefce response risks looking
dangerously complacent.”

"Changes brought
in in England in 2000, which divided A-levels into two separate parts - divided
into modules - had been the "most recent and most public nail in the
coffin" of decline.

They had made it "impossible to teach and to assess mathematics in an
integrated way", making the subject "less appetising".

The report also described a need to "revive" teaching of the subject
to able pupils aged 11 to 16.
The current system of "acceleration", where more gifted children move
ahead of their classmates, had "made the problem worse".

It had meant less focus on the "elementary" aspects of maths, which
were important to know when moving on to A-level."

"Lost count of gloomy
reports about the state of maths in schools and universities? For more than a
decade mathematicians have been moaning and the government has responded with
inquiries, changes in the curriculum, numeracy hours in primary schools, golden
hellos for maths teachers and a plethora of other initiatives in England.

Yet
today the angriest report yet is published by a group of mathematicians,
calling for drastic action to save the subject. Where will the next generation
of UK mathematicians come from, asks the group, drawn from university maths
departments around the country, learned societies and the government's
curriculum watchdog.

At the moment the answer
seems to be "from Russia and Hungary". In many university maths departments
nine out of 10 of appointments go to candidates from abroad, while the shortage
of maths teachers in schools has got so bad that the Department for Education
and Skills has stopped collecting the figures."

The Daily Telegraph: Teaching
of maths in spiral of decline, say dons.(28 June 2005)"Maths teaching in schools and
universities has entered "a spiral of decline" and the
Government has failed to grasp the nature of the crisis, leading
mathematicians said in a report yesterday. They said the performance of
more able pupils had collapsed; the numbers taking A-level maths were
falling dramatically; those with top grades were "increasingly
innumerate and even ineducable"; the shortage of qualified maths
teachers had reached "dangerous" levels; national test results
were grossly inflated; and postgraduates with a PhD in maths from a
British university were now "largely unemployable" in British
universities."

·What kind of early educational environments
foster students who have the potential to become research mathematicians and
which environments tend to have the opposite effect?

·Where will the next generation of
mathematicians come from within the UK? Are
we content to become dependent on other countries?

·And what might we do to increase the local
flow?

In the mathematical community,
there is a growing concern that the supply of bright and motivated
undergraduate and postgraduate students of UK
origin is insufficient. A healthy economy cannot depend on plundering talent
from poorer countries, but needs policies and structures which ensure a regular
and adequate supply of talent from its own sources.The
attention of current policymakers is mainly concentrated on “numeracy” and the
lower end of the spectrum of mathematical education. Thus it is left to
mathematicians to highlight the growing problem of nurturing the future
generation of highly able graduates and research mathematicians and computer
scientists. However, there is at present no agreed “common position” (even
among mathematicians) on these controversial issues. Therefore the meeting
would necessarily be breaking new ground. However, it is important,
before formulating the proposed direction more firmly, to draw on the insights
of colleagues with experience from a number of different domains.

Discussion Document.

The meeting will produce a discussion document, prepared
and agreed among the participants within a month of the date of the meeting,
and delivered to interested organizations (DfES, EPSRC, LMS, IMA, RS, MA, ATM
etc.). We expect that the Discussion Document will contain

¨A first attempt to specify the relevant target group and to
outline a collection of “profiles”, which indicate the variety of
“mathematically able” school students, formulated in psychological and
cognitive (and, therefore, curriculum-independent) terms rather than in terms
of curriculum attainment.

¨An initial attempt to formulate some generic advice to
(interested) schoolteachers of how mathematical cognitive traits can be
developed and supported in students in the course of routine school work.

¨Possibly, some advice to universities’ admission tutors.

¨Discussion of possible “outreach” policies towards schools
and teachers of mathematics aimed at raising awareness of the special nature of
mathematical abilities.

¨Address policy issues affecting undergraduate and
postgraduate recruitment and career paths for young mathematicians. Discussion
of more general policies and structures in the area of education which would
create a learning and teaching environment more conducive to nurturing
mathematical talent.